Six Glasses of Champagne
by wordybee
Summary: It's the New Year and Jeff isn't drunk enough.


**Title:** Six Glasses of Champagne  
**Author:** wordybee  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Rating:** G... I think?  
**Warning:** None.  
**Word Count:** 1,157  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own, blahblahblah legalcakes.

**Note:** for the "Auld Lang Slam" challenge over at the Milady/Milord Livejournal community.

* * *

"Last chance to decide on a resolution," Jeff hears from behind him as he's pouring himself another glass of champagne.

He turns and finds Annie looking up at him. Only, she's looking up from a height that's slightly less extremely short than usual and Jeff realizes she's wearing heels.

She's also wearing a low-cut red satin-looking dress that looks so spectacular on her Jeff's abilities to do things like speak and think coherently and breathe fizzle out his ear into the brightly lit atmosphere of Pierce's heavily decorated living room. He's pretty sure he gapes at her for an eternity, both of them growing old staring at each other mutely as time passes by, but when he gains his bearings and finally speaks she doesn't seem to notice. So obviously, growing old with Annie as he stares into her eyes is all in his head.

Jeff's not sure what that means.

He does speak, though, saying: "I don't make resolutions," and taking a sip from his fourth glass of champagne.

He'd started drinking the champagne because he'd been bored and there was nothing else to drink, and also because it was expensive stuff (Jeff keeps having to remind himself that Pierce, the buffoon, is actually filthy rich) so it wasn't totally against his morals as a bit of an alcohol snob. Now, however, he is torn between drinking more and more of the stuff to keep himself from thinking about Annie in that dress (and Annie out of that dress, good god) and cutting himself off altogether before he does something rash and uninhibited, like kiss her again.

With another sip, Jeff reasons that he hadn't needed to be drunk the last times he'd kissed Annie, so obviously sobriety did nothing to keep him in check. Drink up, me hearties!

Annie – who, thankfully, does not hear or see or notice that Jeff has a lot more going on in his head than he ever, _ever_ lets on (_Annie in that dress, Annie out of that dress, kissing Annie_, Jeff finishes his glass of champagne in a third and final gulp and holds off pouring another so Annie doesn't notice that her friend's being a bit of a lush tonight) – she moves beside Jeff and pours herself a glass of punch. Jeff smiles at that. Annie notices.

"I'm saving the champagne for midnight," she explains. "Last time I got drunk… it wasn't pretty."

Jeff's four glasses of champagne in the last half hour want him to tell her _You're always pretty_, but he has better sense than that and swallows the words back down. He smirks instead.

"Why don't you make resolutions?" Annie asks.

Jeff thinks, trying to find the best way to phrase his feelings.

"I don't think making promises to yourself that you know you're never going to keep is a very healthy thing," he decides.

It's apparently not a very good decision, because Annie frowns at him. "You're very cynical, you know," she says.

"Annie," he says, voice a bit sharp as he looks at her. "I'm standing in the corner by the bar at a party. Of course I'm cynical. Do you know me at all?"

There's a tiny smile playing on her lips, and she meets Jeff's eyes with her big, blue, Disney Princess doe-eyes. She looks at him for a moment, a heartbeat, and then just says, "Yes."

Jeff has never heard so much in such a little word. _Yes, I know you. Yes, I know you're cynical._ _Yes, I know you're too cool to ever not be cynical_. But also, _Yes, I know you'd do anything for your friends_, and _Yes, I know you're a very good person,_ and _Yes, I know you make mistakes, but then you make them better._

Annie moves away from him and he watches her go, but doesn't leave his spot in the corner by the bar. He watches her chat with Shirley and Britta over by the stereo system, and he pours himself another glass of champagne.

It takes another half hour of nursing his fifth glass of champagne before Jeff moves away from the bar and into the party, where his friends are laughing and smiling and dancing (poorly, in the case of Pierce; surprisingly quite well, in the case of Abed) as they wait for 2010 to end and 2011 to begin and for everything to start anew.

Jeff doesn't stop thinking about Annie's _yes_, about how much faith in him she'd put into a single word and a single look. About how much faith she always put in him, even when she was angry with him and thought he was gross because he'd kissed her and broke her heart in the cruelest way he possibly could. She was the voice inside his head that told him when he was being a jerk and the big, tear-filled eyes inside his mind that made him want to make everything better again. She fascinated him, in her abilities to be good and do good and want goodness in others. She was a pillar of strength, but still so very flawed and somehow incredibly fragile. Seeing her could make Jeff feel as happy as he'd ever been in his life or as miserable as anyone could ever be, ever, because every time he looked at her she looked back with this _expectation_ in her eyes, this faith he'd never seen in the eyes of anyone (and he'd been a lawyer; he'd had _lives_ at stake, how had he _never_ seen faith like that?)

It might've been the feeling of the New Year fast approaching, or all the champagne, or a sincere desire, but… Jeff suddenly wanted, very badly, to deserve her faith in him. To deserve _her_.

An hour later, and Jeff has his sixth glass of champagne in his hands – but everyone else has glasses, too, and they're all gathered around Pierce's giant TV screen watching the last seconds of the year tick down. Jeff leans down to Annie, who's standing next to him grinning her big, bright smile at the ticking clock on the screen.

_Ten, nine, eight…_

"I think I've decided on a resolution after all," he says, low enough for no one else to hear but loud enough that he's sure she's heard him.

_Five, four, three_…

Annie's winning smile turns to him instead, and when the countdown strikes _one _and a new year begins, Jeff leans down and kisses the tip of Annie's nose. It's bizarre and sweet and not something she'd expect from Jeff Winger, but they have a long way to go and Jeff's got to start somewhere. Keeping himself from sticking his tongue in her mouth while she's wearing a perfect, perfect dress that would still look better on the floor was as good a place as any.


End file.
